In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: A Geography of Grief

by Christopher Noël

Over the years, IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF A WATER LANDING has helped to guide many thousands of readers down the treacherous, forking paths of grief. This literary memoir will appeal to anyone—man or woman, married or single—who has lost someone beloved, or who has felt soul-nourished by C.S. Lewis's A GRIEF OBSERVED, its penetrating honesty, how it illuminates the terrain of our shared mortality here on Earth. See "Writing from Grief and Loss" and "Christopher Noël discusses Grief Memoir." The Philadelphia "A gifted novelist, Noël writes his heart out in this book. Water Landing captures the tormented psychological circling, the ceremony of mourning and altar-building that mark those left behind. That Noël succeeds so well is a tribute to his bristling intelligence, his talent for deft description, his willingness to open every millimeter of his survival strategy since Brigid's death." The Los Angeles "WATER LANDING is a page-turner...polished, skillful. Within a few pages or even paragraphs, Noël often moves back and forth between decades. In one breath he's chronicling his relationship with Brigid; in another, he reads from a journal kept by his mother during his childhood, weaving it all together to try to heal. Indeed, a perfect stranger could cry." "Sixteen months after his fiancee died in a car accident, Christopher Noël at last was able to write about their relationship and his excruciating loss. He found himself trapped as a 'Tragedy Victim' and sought a suitable way to surmount that grief. Because he and Brigid were writers, Noël decided he could best reach and be reached by her through language, through this memory book. The work documents his journey to the epicenter of pain as he rereads her letters and journals, studies police reports of the accident, and listens to the nurse who comforted Brigid in the emergency room. As Noël searches for meaning in loss, we witness the depth of his love in a series of heart-splitting letters he wrote to Brigid after her death. Anyone who has endured loss will find solace in the aching beauty of this love story in which the beloved lives on in the lover."

Genres: Biography Memoir

246 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 1996

About the author

Also writes children's fiction as Chris Noël.

See also: Christopher Noël.

Reviews

[Victoria Namkung · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing is a poetic journey through an ocean of grief. Heartbreaking and humorous at times, this memoir has plenty to say about loving, being loved, and the spirit of surviving.

[Justwinter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wrenching personal account of losing someone you love in an unexpected accident.

Harrowing read, but so well written that I felt haunted by it, and re-read it again recently.

It doesn't linger after the second read the way it did the first time, but does bring up issues of attending today those things we often feel we have a lifetime to say or do.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning nonfiction book of grief and recovery.

[Lucinda Henrichson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Huh??? I don't understand these positive reviews. My husband just died tragically at 43 and I felt nothing reading this book. I just finished a year of magical thinking so maybe I'm expecting too much.

[Mare Cromwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so brilliantly written. I turn to it again and again to see how one very gifted author portrayed such a difficult time in his life.

[Rhian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this beautiful, understated memoir many years ago when it first came out (1997?) and think about it often.

I hope the writer is doing well and still writing...